OS X Mountain Lion: Share your screen

Share your screen

You can let others view your screen and control your computer. While your screen is shared with another computer, a user of the other computer sees what’s on your screen and can open, move, and close files and windows, open applications, and even restart the computer.

Open Sharing preferences if it isn’t already open, and then select the Screen Sharing checkbox.

To specify who can share your screen, select one of the following:

Option

Description

All users:

Anyone with a user account on your computer can share your screen.

Only these users:

Screen sharing is restricted to specific users.

If you selected “Only these users,” click Add (+) at the bottom of the Users list, and do one of the following:

Select a user from Users & Groups, which includes all the users of your Mac.

Select a user from Network Users or Network Groups, which includes everyone on your network.

Select a person from your contacts. Create a password for the person, and then click Create Account.

Click New Person. Enter a name and password for the person, click Create Account, and then select the person from Users & Groups.

To let others share your screen without having a user account on your Mac, click Computer Settings, and then select one or both of the following:

Option

Description

Anyone may request permission to control screen:

When other computer users begin screen sharing sessions with your Mac, they can ask for permission instead of entering a user name and password.

VNC viewers may control screen with password:

Other users can share your screen using a VNC viewer app, for example on iPad or a Windows PC, by entering the password you specify here.

If this computer’s screen is shared only by other OS X users, turn off these options and add accounts for the other users.